Joe “nineX” Szymkowicz had a chance to sit down with Shane “rapha” Hendrixson, of SK-Gaming, after his trip to the ESWC Masters Quake 3 competition. Exhausted from the combination of jet-lag and an intense field of competition, Rapha talked about his future in gaming and some topics swirling around the deathmatch community.
GGL: So you’re back from Paris; how do you feel? What did you think of your play in the tournament?
Hendrixson: I am so glad to be back where I could eat some really good food; French food is bleh :o It’s going to take a few days to get back into the swing of things, and I’ll slowly start practicing again. I think I did well, despite all the problems I was having.
GGL: After already seeing much of the competitors at the Masters event, how do you feel about the upcoming finals event in San Jose?
Hendrixson: Gonna be a tough event but as I said before I’m looking forward to it. The gap isn’t real big between most of the players that’ll be going to the finals, there are going to be some fantastic games. I feel good going into it and I’m glad I still have a month to try and prepare for it.
GGL: You’ve played plenty of times on LAN in the US; what was it like playing in your first international event?
Hendrixson: Going into it I thought it would be a bit more difficult because of the jet lag and I was right but all in all it was a nice experience :) Continued…
Almost right after Blizzard released its no-CD patch, IceFrog followed with a new Defense of the Ancients map update. The new map features an enormous changelog, from balancing and reworking heroes to moving creep camps and trees all over the map.
A blast from the past, the Invoker makes a return to the world of DotA. After being an easter egg in 6.49, IceFrog brought back the old Invoker. The hero follows a completely different model, using a combination of three separate “settings” to create other skills. The model uses a Blood Mage with a white cloak.
While most competitions use the most updated version of a game, the map will probably not be included in the upcoming E-Sports World Cup event. This is due to balance issues, new items, and the fact that any new heroes are generally banned anyway.
Currently, 6.48b remains the stable map for league play.
The highly anticipated ESWC Defense of the Ancients tournament has released more details about the upcoming event.
Yesterday, the ruleset was released in .pdf format on the ESWC website. Aside from the “no trap rule,” the rules are fairly standard.
ESWC looks like it’s sticking to the formats most commonly played among all the leagues.
For those who care but don’t want to read:
- Map Version 6.48b
- Extended League mode (-xl format, -ap in game)
- Pit Lord, Undyin, Dark Seer, Templar Assassin, Sacred Warrior, Storm Spirit, and Faerie Dragon are banned. Continued…
GGL’s Reid Landeen translated this interview from Chinese into English for GGL China.
With 2008 underway, details about the big e-Sports events of the New Year are coming out. Recently, ESWC has officially decided that the location for China’s qualifier for the finals will be held Wuxi, in Jiangsu Province.
It is understood that this year’s ESWC China will have brand new organizers running the event. Since China is hosting the Olympic Games this year, what kind of surprises will the new 2008 ESWC China competitions ultimately give us with this non-Olympic sporting event? Bringing a ton of questions, we interviewed Lu Chen, the person in charge of the Wuxi Digital Media Company who is hosting the ESWC 2008 China competitions.
Hello Mr. Lu. Can you first explain a little about the undertaking organization of ESWC 2008 China’s competitions?
Mr. Lu: Hello. The undertaking organization for the ESWC 2008 China competitions is the Wuxi Digital Media Company. Specializing as an e-Sports company, our team is mostly made of people who come from China’s e-Sports industry, so they have a very deep understanding of e-Sports competitions as a whole. So, we have a lot of confidence that we can make the ESWC 2008 China qualifiers the single most successful competition in ESWC history, while at the same time making this become one of the most influential and prosperous cultural events in all of China. Continued…
The E-Sports World Cup has left France.
ESWC boss Mattieu Dallon has made good on his promise to keep at least some semblance of the ESWC in its home country, however, and the organization today announced the ESWC Masters for July 4-6, 2008 in Paris Bercy.
ESWC Masters will be an invite competition for all the official ESWC disciplines, including Defense of the Ancients, Trackmania Nations, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, Counter-Strike 1.6 (mixed and ladies) and (hail to the king, baby!) Quake 3. The winners will all receive berths into the Grand Final.
Prizing, autoberth, and qualification details will be released at a later date.
It’s been a few days since news leaked that the E-Sports World Cup is leaving France, but the burning question in my mind is: why pick the U.S.?
Furthermore, why pick California, of all places, as a state to hold the event? Mind you, I’m not complaining. I live in California, so if they hold it here, there’s a strong chance I can pop in and get some good interviews and video for our site.
Maybe I can’t see the forest for the trees, but I can tell you what I know about ESWC, e-sports events held in the U.S., and California.
First of all, as Carmac noted earlier, ESWC has never had a steady national strategic partner in the U.S. Logistically, this means that ESWC could run into trouble setting up the event. Where will the admins come from? Who’s going to deal with venue staff to ensure that the event goes off flawlessly? Continued…
